K, we're gonna start this one off with a data dump, because a lot of basic info is readily available from the packaging. Vinyl Williams is the nom de. . .um. . .I don't know what the Latin for musician is. I don't even know if nom de plume and nom de guerre are Latin or French. I should be asleep, and instead I'm typing this and contemplating doing a we-forgot-stuff grocery run for powdered ginger and pickles (ETA: couldn't find the pickles I wanted, turned out not to need powdered ginger. Got a lemon and grapes). . . . Lemme start over.
Vinyl Williams is the semi-homophonic alias of Lionel Williams, and apart from some percussion and keys, we got us a one man band. We also got us a four song EP.
I'd bet money that Williams is from Utah, because this was recorded at two studios there (that hard to read line of tiny type after "recorded @ Annex studios" is "additional recording at The Black Room in Midway, UT") and I don't think anyone goes to Utah just to record. It's pretty there but the numbers don't lie; I have literally thousands of albums and the only other one recorded in Utah is Visigoth's Conqueror's Oath. And Visigoth are from Salt Lake City.
As with rhed, the lack of a specific instrument listing means that if there're any distinctive instruments that might give me clues to the sound--pedal steel, harp, woodwinds, brass, etc.--I won't know until I push play. The release date doesn't help either; countless genres were going strong in 2007. So we've got album art, song titles, and artist name to go with.
The song titles are mad intriguing--probably why I picked this up, although I don't remember--although they're ambiguous. We can eliminate metal though. The art could go with the really abstract and/or post-metal stuff like Isis and Neurosis, or drone metal, but the song titles are wrong--"Oh, Dark Master" would just be "Dark Master." Nor is Vinyl Williams a metal name.
The art also argues against the bordering-on-twee cutesy sensibilities a lot of indie rock bands had at the time. There's an understated cleanliness to Talks In Her Sleep's design, something quietly demanding you take it seriously as opposed to the we're-too-hip-to-care amateur drawings that adorned albums by Immaculate Machine or Los Campsinos! (not to throw shade on either band, but). The disc is the same way.
So that's a lot of what the external indicators say this isn't, what do they say it is? My guess is that we've got some very poetic lyrics; the song titles are both evocative and diverse enough--even with only four songs--to point to wide-ranging introspection. I don't think it'll be singer-songwriter though, the fact that Williams assembled a live band argues for some punch. It could be freak folk, but I'm going to cast my lot on home brewed art rock. This is the least certain I've been so far though, so I'm prepared to be way wrong. We'll find out Monday.
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